Trump Organization Refuses to Check Out of Panama Hotel

Chris Dolmetsch, Bloomberg

- Jan 17, 2018 1:18 pm

Skift Take

It should come as little surprise that the Trump Organization appears to be using some of the same tactics – bullying and intimidation – to reach a resolution with the Panama hotel that President Trump is using in the White House.

— Dan Peltier

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Most of the unit owners in the Trump International Hotel & Tower Panama want to get rid of the president’s hotel-management company. It refuses to go without a fight and, according to the owners, is trying to bully them into backing down.

The owners’ association in October accused Trump Hotels of mismanagement in an arbitration claim and sought $15 million in damages. Trump’s company countered with a claim for more than $150 million against the hotel and the owners for attending an October meeting where they voted to oust the company. On Tuesday, unitholders sued to block Trump’s arbitration claims.

Trump is trying to “intimidate and harass” the Panama hotel owners into joining an arbitration proceeding before the International Chamber of Commerce concerning the alleged mismanagement of the hotel, according to the lawsuit in Manhattan federal court.

“The hotel has steadily been losing market share and stands in last place among its peer luxury hotels in all the relevant metrics for success in the hotel industry,” the owners said. “The decline in occupancy has had and continues to have a direct impact on the hotel’s bottom line.”

Trump’s divisive rhetoric during the presidential campaign and since has hurt patronage of his hotels in politically liberal areas including New York. Since June, owners have moved to strip Trump’s name from hotels in Toronto and New York’s SoHo neighborhood as well as Panama.

The suit was filed by two entities of Miami-based Ithaca Capital Partners that own more than 200 of the Panama hotel’s 396 units and its amenities, including the pool and restaurant spaces, and Ithaca’s managing partner, Orestes Fintiklis. Trump Panama Hotel Management LLC and Trump International Hotels Management LLC are the defendants.

Seventy-eight percent of the beneficiaries of the foundation that controls the hotel met in October and voted unanimously to terminate Trump’s management, according to the lawsuit. The complaint was filed just weeks after the residents of Trump Place, a condominium complex on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, sued seeking a court order declaring that they had permission to remove Trump’s name from those buildings.